Grinding Gears

Lately, I've been curious as to if I should be on a stimulant of some sort or not. Whether or not I have ADHD has also been put onto the table for questioning. What I do know for certain is that immense amounts of coffee (three or so cups of coffee or a handful of chocolate covered coffee beans straight) can aid in getting me to sleep. I also know that low to moderate amounts of caffeine and 'energy' drinks can calm me down. This is quite common in people with ADHD, except that sugar seems to be able to have the opposite effect, and actually magnify the energy drastically. That, I haven't found in myself.

My NP (nurse practitioner) is iffy about putting me on any more meds, or adjusting my meds much. From what I've read, people with bipolar can be flung into manic and hypomanic episodes more easily when on stimulants, which isn't ideal should that be the case 24/7. Well, sometimes I wish I could always be a little hypomanic, but when I'm not, it's exhausting just to think about. However, I'd much rather always be hypomanic than just blah or depressed. I don't deal with those two states very well.

However, a bipolar blogger I like to read talked about this sort of thing, as she's on Ritalin. She apparently takes it once every other day, and this gets her into a little bit of a hypomanic flight which lasts into the next days without going overboard, or needing too much of it. She described how I feel perfectly; she said, "Most of my moods like to hang out on the depressive side of the pole, and quite honestly, I hate it. Usually it takes something to push me into a state of hypo-mania. Not always, but generally speaking that is how it is. A medication, a major event, a seasonal shift. It doesn’t take much, but it usually takes something. I don’t just wake up one day all manic and happy." I didn't used to be like this, but it seems like, now-a-days, I linger around the 'blah' side of things way too much and need a push of some sort to get me some energy, up, and racing.

Hypomania is a wonderful feeling: you don't need to sleep as much, you have a rush of energy and ideas, you feel like you have the answer to everything, and like nothing bad could happen. Depression, however, would be if you took the opposites of all of those things except for sleep (it's a cliché that depressed people sleep too much, and it's often the opposite.) Now, I've been getting this grinding gear feeling for the past year or so. It's like the two have merged into some get-nothing-done, anxious, tugging-from-opposite-sides state. It's as though the gears want to be turning, or want to be stopped, but something's trying to have both at the same time. Imagine an engine that doesn't want to start, and you get that brutal, ear-shattering grinding sound - that's how I feel. You feel like trying to push it to go will just cause some sort of irreversible damage, and no one wants that.

So, what is this 'grinding gears' sensation? Well, let's look at how I'm feeling right at this very moment - as well as many nights. I took my meds a little while ago and they're starting to sink in. When this happens, I typically feel a kind of wall of sedation hit me. It's not always very strong - or even effective - but I do still feel it. Now, I have a tendency to resist this to a degree, often until I finally lose the fight and go to sleep (sometimes unintentionally in the middle of things.) However, during the resistance, I feel somewhat like I'm trying to run in shin-deep water. My mind wants to keep on going, but the meds in my system are trying to tell me otherwise. Often, the two contradict each other so that I can neither sleep, nor get anything done. I don't know how many times I wanted to write something but didn't because my meds kicked in and fogged up my brain.

Now, take this and apply it more loosely to my day-to-day life, not just at night. It got me thinking that maybe I'm on too many meds, or maybe just not the right combo. Maybe the more slowing/sedating properties are leaking less noticeably, but still problematically, into the rest of my life. Perhaps this is what's causing that grinding gears sensation. However, these hypotheses could be off, or incomplete - I really don't know. I just know that bipolar, or whatever it is I have, exactly, is a lifelong journey, and it'll probably take a good deal of time before I have things figured out.

Desires

I suppose I have horrendously unrealistic desires when it comes to my mood disorder and anxiety. I want to be able to freely and readily swing between highs and lows, but I don’t want to be obligated or responsible for anything during those times. I want to meet people, but I don’t want to do the work of going out into the world to do so – I’d rather be set up with someone and… just hope we mesh well. I want to be able to feel free to cry if I get emotional and laugh insanely when I’m emotionally high without feeling like I’m being judged. I want to be stable and unstable at my very whim. I want to be able to manually open the flood gates (tears), because – otherwise – they’re habitually blocked. I want to be able to just… go to sleep when I feel sleepy, and feel sleepy, like a normal person, instead of needing a chemically induced sleep every night. I forgot a long time ago what natural sleep feels like.

Some of these might not seem so crazy to certain individuals, while some of these might seem ridiculous. I can’t really predict who would think what. I can understand these desires being unrealistic, but they’re desires – not necessarily what I will or can get. I guess, to sum it up, I want control… even if that means a little bit of lack of control. I always imagine in my head how things should play out, with specific cues, like a movie version in my head. I can say that I cannot recall a single instance that has happened except for the ends of certain movies (I’ll admit, when no one’s looking, I can be a bit of a crier with films that hit home with me.)
 
I see these bipolar people on TV and movies, or hear stories about people with bipolar, and they sound so much closer to how I used to be. I mean, not many people get a number of coexisting psychoses in the form of different kinds of consistent and persistent delusions and hallucinations. That’s one reason an old therapist of mine and I had come to the same conclusion that I might have schizoaffective disorder with bipolar tendencies (in between bipolar and schizophrenia, though they are sometimes believed to be part of the same continuum.) Still, having been on a steady supply of antipsychotics for years and years, now – perhaps over a half dozen different kinds – I’ve been lacking that particular symptom. I had a love-hate relationship with my psychoses… I often miss them, but am often glad they aren’t around anymore. I guess if I could pick and choose my psychoses, I’d be just golden. There I go being unrealistic in my desires, as I obviously can’t be picky about what psychoses I do and don’t have.
 
And then there are my romantic desires… Love… wife… kids… Each and every day that goes by, I decrease my chances of ever finding those things because of my solitary, hermitic, anxiety-engulfed, anti-social, hypocritical day-to-day life lodged firmly in this house. And what if I happen to miraculously find any such person, and succeed with any such things? Would I just live a miserable, unfulfilling life? Would I feel inept and impotent? Would I be a horrible father? Would I still be too scared to even walk a few blocks away from the comfort of my house alone? I’m constantly pestered by these questions swirling in my head. The things I want could become so disastrous in my current state, or if my state got any worse. I then often think that, perhaps, dooming myself might be the only way to avert such disaster, assuming that I don’t improve. It’s not until I improve in the various other areas that my self-destructive tendencies really become relevant as more than a defence mechanism.
 
To be able to control what I feel and how I feel it… To be able to control how I deal with things in life… To be the master of my mind… Those are the things I truly want so badly. That’s what all of these desires really boil down to. I almost achieved a trance-like state during a shower at dawn. It was peaceful, relaxed, and utterly free of my problems. All the pain and anxiety and tiredness seemed to disappear. It felt almost like sleeping, but it wasn’t. All of my senses began to blur, but were ever-present. I was mindful of every one sensation, and yet they felt… not blocked, not dulled, but a particular kind of feeling that I’ve only really found in narcotics. You know that it’s there, but it’s drastically less taxing on you. This transcendent state was like a natural, mindful painkiller. If I could always achieve a state like that, I don’t know if it would be good or bad. Would I become like the guy on Office Space, or like a Buddhist monk? Or would I become like something else entirely?
 
My life has been like one giant experiment with no real conclusions. There’s been trial and error, with no ‘right way’ of doing things (but certainly plenty of wrong ways.) And, in this life, each trial and, usually inevitable, error takes months at a time, if not years, making the process painstakingly slow.

The Sky is Up and the Ground is Down? Weird.

Here are some of the newer highlights with me... I ran out of two of my meds, recently - the first is Lamictal (Lamotrigine), which is supposed to help stabilise my mood, and the second is Neurontin (Gabapentin) which is supposed to help manage my (still being investigated, but suspect fibromyalgia) pain. Both have done quite a bit of heavy lifting in their respective departments. Both I’ve been out of for a long enough time that they are most certainly long gone and out of my system.

Want to hear the strange thing? I’m feeling fine! Better than before! What the f-... Yeah. Did the world suddenly turn upside down? Or have I just come to expect everything that can go wrong to go wrong so readily that I’m shocked and stunned when something doesn’t go wrong? I know that I’ve said for quite a while now that I expect everything bad that could possibly happen to happen (even though I also try to hope that it won’t), so it wouldn’t surprise me if I’m taking this the wrong way. I mean... good is good, right? Take it however it may come?

I’m quite sure that my mind has become conditioned so that - no matter what - I take everything and see it in a negative way. I see good things and think, “Wow, something must really be wrong, now!” Normally - or my ‘normally,’ at least - being happy and in a constant good mood was a result or symptom of something else, and never had much of a real or long-lasting basis in something good or considered ‘normal.’ Particularly mania, or more commonly for me, hypomania, was the suspect for giddiness, or even just plain and simple happiness. My brain, I imagine, would flood with dopamine, my heart would begin to flutter, and ideas and seemingly random words would flood out of my mouth as if a dam exploded.

Sans the bouncing off the walls and talking fast an in utter logorrhea, I’ve felt sort of hypomanic, though my psychologist has described this strange phenomenon as ‘happiness.’ Not mania or hypomania, not a disorder or something wrong with me. She suggested that I might just be this strange, alien thing called ‘happy.’

Now I think to myself, “Wait, so this is what I’ve been trying to achieve all this time? Weird.” I’m not saying it’s bad; it’s actually quite good! I know that. To me, though, it’s just weird. I’m not completely sure how to say it, especially in a way that would bring clarity to someone else. Let’s just say that some people live in places that have never seen the sight of snow, so something as simple as snow might be simply a marvel to them, or they may think that 68 degrees is cold. If you go to southern California in the middle of summer and it’s 68 at noontime, sure, that’d seem just crazy! It would here, too. But at the end of summer, here, that’s perfectly normal, even if others from other climates can’t quite wrap their heads around it or get used to it. No, lady, I’m not putting on a coat in September just because it’s 68 out! That’s not cold (to me)! Well, in this odd and fairly inaccurate metaphor, I’m the Californian who thinks that 68 degrees as the high in September means the world is beginning to freeze over.

Normally, after having run out of Lamictal, I would’ve quickly fallen into bitter moods and had moderate to severe withdrawals. No matter how much I anticipated them, they never came! I’ve had some minor bitterness from time to time, but it’s almost negligible; and withdrawal symptoms? I’ve had no cold sweats, no nausea and/or vomiting, no upset digestive tract, no withdrawal-specific pain, no shivers... I’ve hardly felt any sort of bad sensations since I ran out (albeit, since I ran out of Neurontin, my typical pain has increased slightly, but I’ve been constantly distracting myself from the pain, making it occur less.) Overall, I’ve been feeling better instead of worse. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I mean... how does that happen?

One thing that I’ve noticed, however, is that - since I ran out of Lamictal - my sleep has gone from screwed up to consistently extreme. I went from an irregular near-24-hour sleep-wake schedule to a 48-hour one. I’ve been essentially going every other night without any sleep, staying awake for 34 or so hours and sleeping for 14. In middle school, I used to go just about whole school weeks without sleep, but that was because I could only sleep during the day, and school largely prevented that. This is a whole other thing, though. My body doesn’t even seem to grasp the concept of a ‘day.’ And what’s even stranger to me is that my body is staying pretty consistent with about when I get up, when I go to sleep, how long I’m up, and how long I’m asleep.

I’ve read from more than one source, now, that sleep deprivation can help with depression, and is even occasionally used as a treatment method! Since my sleep has become more extreme, with longer hours being both awake and asleep, I’ve noticed my mood is drastically improved. I’m not sure yet if those have anything to do with one another, but I’ve gotten to a place where I don’t want to ‘mess with success,’ where the success is the constant improved mood.

I’m not sure I want to mess with my sleeping schedule for fear that it might mess with other things, as well, such as my good moods of late. I’m not sure I want to mess with my meds, either, for the same reasons. Somehow, I’ve fallen into a system that seems to be working, at least relatively well, and I know that it could be, and could get, so much worse. This has been a drastic improvement, believe it or not! So why would I want to mess with that, at least right now?

Like always, I suppose I’ll just keep on trying to figure things out as I go. Make adjustments, gain knowledge... I’ll see how things go, try to go with the flow, so to speak.

A Reflection, Darkly

I used to see people die right in front of me in some of the most gruesome ways. Necks being sliced in half, eyeballs being diced, limbs being chopped off by some disembodied, evil force. Of course it was all in my head, but it was real enough to scare the shit out of me. I loved these people. Well, most of them, anyway. Looking back, I don’t know if I could ever say that was mutual with them, but I blindly loved them, anyway. Seeing someone being brutally murdered right in front of you - but not - repeatedly, day by day, with the blood dripping from the walls and ceiling, all the worse in a large crowd... I have to admit, it took a toll on me.
 
Most of my days back then, I looked down, trying not to look at people. As long as I didn’t see them, I didn’t hallucinate their horrible deaths over and over. They would still talk and act normal, since... well, they were actually perfectly fine, but that only creeped me out all the more. Just several years ago, I handled hallucinations - both auditory and visual - as well as mood swings, paranoia, and just plainly my full blown insanity much better than I currently handle my semi-treated, moderately-medicated, much more ‘blah,’ grey life now.
 
I can’t explain it - I truly can’t - but I crave with such deep, powerful longing to return to that unfettered, crazed state where my mind ran rampant and I had almost no control and very little grasp on reality. Well, I take that back... I could always tell a hallucination from reality, my mind just also maintained a constant break from reality. But these ‘breaks’ from reality were what, ironically, held me together. Without them, in my current state, I have no adequate coping mechanisms. My hallucinations were what got me from point A to point B. Now... I’m just stuck somewhere around G, not moving forward, but perhaps steadily moving backward, heading back to A.
 
Now, I don’t want to be mistaken; meds were certainly the route to go. Without them... well, my brain just might be mush and my life might’ve been exponentially worse off. These are hypothetical possibilities, of course, as I obviously didn’t stay off meds. I have fought with the costs and effects of my various med regimens for quite some time, now, of course, and it’s altered me both biologically and psychologically in quite a drastic way. I look back at what my life was five, six years ago... at it seems almost like an entirely different life from this one - an entirely different world.
 
It feels as though my soul doesn’t really belong in this new world, however, and I’m constantly being tugged back toward the old world through distant memories that hardly seem completely real; more like dreams than memories. Writing about my old self almost feels like writing fiction when it’s far from it. It’s probably some of the truest stuff I’ve ever written about, but it goes in circles, in a continuous pattern repeating itself over and over, and I can hardly elaborate further. My memories are both very finite and continuously expanding through finding the keys to those memories through scent, taste, touch, or other sensorial data. The slightest, most seemingly trivial thing can trigger an uncontrolled tsunami of memories, and these memories sometimes pour over me over and over, overwhelm me, and even control me. They’re unpredictable, and closely tether to my senses and my heart, and can sometimes seem like flashbacks or glitches, flickering on and off erratically.
 
Unless a person has personally gone through what I have, I’m not sure I could ever get someone to completely understand. It’s like I phase in and out of this world, always on the edge, on the border, between two parallel universes that are all too different simply because of a matter of perspective. There’s the old world, before meds, and then the new world, stable and sane, and I seem to have started to ebb and flow between the two. I’m not quite insane, but not quite sane, either. I’m constantly on the edge of the cliff, not even knowing where I am or how I got there, staring down and down and down, knowing that a gusty wind pushing in the wrong direction could send me falling to an inevitable demise, and yet I can’t seem to simply take a few steps back. I become petrified, staring into that seemingly endless canyon, only able to dwell on the possibility of danger.
 
I feel drugged; not from meds, not from anything I know. I feel as though I were slipped a mysterious, foreign drug to which I’m at the mercy of, for I don’t know its effects, nor do I know how much I’ve taken, how potent... anything. It’s a mystery to me. All that I know is that things don’t feel right. Things don’t feel familiar or comfortable. Things have changed and I can’t control them - I’m out of control. All I can do now is try to weather the chemical state I’ve somehow fallen into and hope to come out the other side...

0 to 60

I have a tendency to go from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds - from completely fine and decent to wanting to mass murder soft, fuzzy critters. It can be something meaningless or something I’m passionate about... or a meaningless rant about something I’m passionate about. Sadly, most of the time, it’s meaningless. It seems like just about anything can trigger me and so it can become extremely difficult to pinpoint what and anticipate when I’m going to have a flare up (and I don’t mean my pain... though it certainly is a pain.)

I’m an extremely hypocritical person. It’s not easy for a hypocrite to accept that they’re a hypocrite, but it’s certainly easy for a hypocrite to accuse another of being one. I’m a hypocrite who hates hypocrisy. Is this getting hypocritical enough? I will often take very large stands against something... only to do it myself, and then justify my doing it - whatever ‘it’ may be. For instance, I might say that I hate when people talk too much... but then what do I do? I talk... a lot... and I make people think the same thing, only about me. Mom just might hate that hypocritical problem of mine most. When I’m then accused of being a hypocrite, well... my thermostat usually goes well above the boiling point. Being accused of just about anything will do that to me.

Criticism. It doesn’t matter if it’s constructive, corrective, or mean, I just can’t stand it. I’m very hypocritical here, too, but I’d rather be called a hypocrite than be criticised in any way. They say that people with bipolar, and similar disorders, are much more sensitive to criticism than the average person. You think it would just be easier if I did something your way instead of mine? Well... I’d curse my brains out... in my mind. I’d then argue quite persistently and arrogantly until no one feels in the least bit good. Criticism can get me to the point where I stab the person with words - and trust me, I’ve brought a number of people to tears on several occasions by just arguing with them.

Saying I’m lazy, especially when I’m in a bad mood. How do I want to react? ‘Well, f*ck you!” How do I respond? Well, very much as with criticism, especially since I consider it criticism, at least at the time. I’ll likely say that the person saying I’m lazy makes me want to kill them and all that jazz. If I’m already in a bad mood, it probably just ends up feeling like kicking me while I’m down. Depression isn’t easy, and thinking that I can just ‘snap out of it’ and go about my life is total bull (note, however, that it’s understandable to encourage activity while depressed.) Quite frankly, there’s a bit of justification in my anger in this case. However, the amount of anger and how I lash out is, admittedly, not justifiable.

Disrespecting or disregarding my quirks. OCD/OCD-like symptoms aren’t easy to deal with, no matter what someone might think. Yes, I have a silly desire to put the silverware and dishes in certain places, in certain orders, and in certain ways. Yes, I’m hypercritical about a lot of things. Yes, I can’t stand germs and will sometimes go to extreme lengths to avoid them (even if, in a different circumstance, I defy that impulse entirely.) Disregarding or disrespecting these quirks of mine can get my blood boiling. I probably hold in my anger the most with this, but that anger probably gets vented another way. Just like with the depression, I can’t simply snap out of these habits anytime I’d like and go about being ‘normal,’ so I take immense offence when someone acts as though I can, even if I end up overreacting.

Being told what to do, or what I need to do. Man, will this piss me off. I know, in the end, that people mean well, but you have to know that I just never can see it that way in the moment. I end up getting more discouraged, side-tracked, and frustrated that I actually am even less likely to do those things. I become rigid and resistant to the point of total stubbornness. Also... I tend to merely be reminded of what I haven’t been successful at in the past which doesn’t conjure any good thoughts and feelings. No matter how much you think you’re being encouraging, stop. It won’t work and it’ll backfire. Perhaps a little to keep some perspective is good, but only very little. Well, okay, that’s not to say that all attempts at encouragement is futile, but - rather - the average person just doesn’t know how to safely encourage someone with a mental, behavioral, and/or personality disorder.

A person with a disorder thinks differently than most others (it wouldn’t exactly be disordered otherwise), and it can be hard for both sides to understand one another. This is why it’s just a bad idea to assume that what works for everyone else will work for someone with a disorder. For instance, saying, ‘You’ll get nowhere if you stop trying,’ can be encouraging to someone without a disorder; however, someone with a disorder might translate it as, ‘You obviously aren’t trying very hard.’ Also, a person with a disorder - especially a personality disorder - will often perceive tones in a person’s voice that isn’t really there, causing for misconceptions and even disastrous miscommunication.

Perpetuating an argument, even if I started it. It’s not a good idea to do this, as I’ll practically take it as a declaration of war, and I likely won’t stop until I’ve either won, or the other person forfeits. However hard it may be for you to stop arguing back, it’s drastically harder for me. Once I get going, I’m going. I try to stop, but it becomes autonomic. These rages I go through almost cause a sort of dissociation where I feel separate from my body, and my body’s just acting on its own. It isn’t until I start to cool down that I get back into... at least some control.

These things don’t happen all the time, but frequently enough that it’s a problem. Anger has become something harder and harder for me to control, and I have to use all of my willpower to stop from making it physical on some occasions. The more that the anger becomes inflated, the more likely I am to hurt someone (emotionally, at least), causing guilt and depression in the aftermath. Nothing good ever comes of it, but I never feel in control in those moments. It may sound unreasonable to avoid these things, but it might end up with a more unreasonable result if you don’t.

This post isn’t to say anything more than how to hopefully avoid problems with me. I also not saying that I don’t want to even bother trying to change any of these things. It’s just about the here and now, and hopefully give insight into some of my actions and reactions.

One article that I could relate to - at least vaguely in some aspects - was: 6 Triggers and Tips to Avoid Disaster.

Limbo

I just took a shower. It might seem trivial... A simple task that many people - maybe even most in the civilised world - do every day. For me, it’s a little different. I’ll admit that I don’t shower all too often. At least not to most standards, but certainly more than soldiers in a whole somewhere in Iraq or any other place at least at one time in total ruin, dreaming - praying - for the next time they even get a drink of water. But I’ll tell you why. Even in the most unproductive or seemingly pointless tasks, I become obsessive. I keep on doing more and more, often ignoring the need to take care of myself. I’m a little better, now, though. At least I’m somewhat prompt when it comes to eating or drinking (I’m worse at making sure I drink something for the day than eating, when I have the chance to simply sit down and obsess over something.

But a shower is even more than just a moment where I remember and make sure to take care of myself. It’s my safe haven. It’s where I get a chance to think without limitations or distractions. It’s a place where I can step back for a bit from the troubles of life - of living. It’s where this man of little faith in just about anything gets a little... replenishment of faith. When I’m in a darker place... a much darker place, sometimes only the ‘safe haven’ part is true. Sometimes I lack all faith - in my spirituality, in people, and in myself, if not also in more.

I sometimes pray. It’s almost the only place I ever pray, or ever have prayed. I don’t very much, though. Not in the grander scheme of things. In this last shower, it was different. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’ve been struggling - a lot - lately. In the past... well, almost year. I’ve struggled very much for at least six years, but not nearly as much as now, or the first two of those six years. In this last shower, while praying - if not perhaps begging - I was first upright, and then I fell lower, and then lower until I was completely on the ground. I was fighting and fighting to force tears to prove to a God I’ve had wavering faith in that I truly meant what I asked, and it isn’t until now, while writing this, that I’ve even came close. But, when I was done, and I got back up, a chill ran through my whole body, and in the hot, steaming shower, I got goose bumps all over, and thought to myself, ‘How can I not be sincere, with this reaction?’

My psychologist gave me a little homework to do before our next visit. She said to, ‘write down [my] thoughts every time I’m happy.’ At my last visit, I gave her a list of my main problems, and she had said how I always dwell on the negatives, but never on the positives. I always analyse what’s wrong with me, but never what’s right, or - if nothing else - good. I’ve thought about it, and the only answer I can think of is, ‘I never think when I’m happy.’ I don’t think, I don’t analyse... I don’t obsess. Happiness, for me, is just a moment - a time where everything is merely an endogenous response, a physical reaction, a natural, pure thing. It’s really not explainable. It’s not something that can adequately be put into words. But, being just a moment, happiness is all too fleeting. It lasts seconds, minutes, or probably at most hours. Days would be seemingly unheard of.

Happiness is a time where there’s neither hope, nor lack of it; where there’s no pain, no worry, and no fear. It’s a place where thoughts are essentially non-existent and the soul takes over. Now, this is not to say that I don’t talk, that I’m reckless or without intent, or where I’m totally vacant. I’m there, for sure, and happiness can most certainly be interrupted, or more likely crushed and destroyed, in seconds with a simple stimuli. When this happens - when happiness loses to... the darkness, I suppose - I return to my ‘normal’ self, constantly worried, constantly paranoid, constantly analysing, constantly obsessing, hopeless, struggling with faith of all kinds, angry, fearful, turbulent, broken, alone... sad.

I’ve heard on more than one show and movie at least something along the lines of, ‘Hope can only carry you so far before reality sets in.’ It’s too true. Reality set in somewhere toward the first quarter of this past school year - my 12^th grade year - that grew and grew into an unstable, unstoppable force until I become totally catatonic and had to drop out. I dropped out of my classes, really, and then my... ‘Home school,’ I suppose you can call it (not to be confused with homeschooling) dropped me... without any notice, too. Honestly, I just wanted a little break, not to end it outright. If I completed that year of school, despite all of the disruptions of the previous three years, all of my missing credits would’ve been waved and I would’ve graduated. I would’ve then been able to proceed to college and maybe even a successful life. I want to try and achieve all of that; I just don’t know when I’ll... even be capable of doing it.

Perhaps my biggest, baddest habit is avoiding... running away from, anything and everything that causes anxiety and depression, making my bubble, my safe zone, smaller and smaller, yet I get more and more anxiety to run away from, and that bubble gets perpetually smaller and... well, I think it’s quite obvious that it simply wouldn’t end well. Probably utterly petrified of the world, holed up in some deep, dark place, hiding from... everything. That is, of course, if it continues to perpetuate to that point.

But, there I am, with my likely second worst habit, dwelling on all of the negatives. I suppose that, when you wear the dark, roseless-colored glasses long enough, it’s hard not to only see from that perspective. When every attempt at doing something good, something productive, and something hopeful fails, crashes, and burns right before your eyes, you also start to pick up on the view that the world is a big bad, hopeless place that you simply don’t, and can’t, fit into. A puzzle piece trying to fit into the wrong puzzle. And you start to wonder, ‘What’s my purpose? What’s the point?’ And it gets harder and harder to see the light as you fall deeper and deeper into the tunnel that seems as though it was designed - tailored - for just you; a hole that you now fit into that no one else does, designed to ensnare and confine you to. And, when other people tell you that they’ve been there, or that you’re words ring true to them, you have the hardest time believing them because, well, obviously no one could possibly be like you. No one could possibly understand. And the darkness blinds you, and extinguishes the fire... at least until a little spark manages to ignite, only to eventually be extinguished again.

Now, there’s mania. Mania can be a great respite from all of this... awful, tiring shit, but it’s... well... manic. It’s crazy, nearly uncontrollable, frenzied, and... often enough, euphoric. It’s like a drug, and with any other drug (at least illicit ones), there’s a terrible crash, and you desire with all of your primal heart to get just one more taste of that ecstasy, regardless of any consequences. And when you taste it, you think that the crash is worth it, but it’s not. And when the crashes get longer and more frequent, that euphoria becomes just a problem. The higher you go, the lower you drop, but damn do you want to go high. It’s like a rollercoaster that’s both fun and frightening, only it’s constant and seemingly never ending, and you’re heart can only beat so fast, your lungs can only take so much, and it ends up taking a toll on your body, mind, and soul that feels as though it’ll be the death of you.

Lately... I’ve been in a weird state. My mind has been... turned to slush, my body put into a daze, and my consciousness in Limbo. I’ve felt as though I’ve been taking my opiate pain relievers every day, all day. I’ve had headaches, but they’re just slow, long, dull headaches. I’ve felt like I’m in a dream state, my body on autopilot. I react to things, even in ways that I don’t mean to. I’ve been in this sort of Limbo before, but not so... strongly, or dominantly. Not so long, either. It’s been weeks, and for months it’s been becoming more and more frequent with longer durations each time, building up with time.

If you’ve never taken an opiate, or at least something like it or a benzodiazepine, you probably couldn’t fathom what this feels like. You’re there... but you’re not... I suppose it’s a little like dissociation, which is common in some mental disorders and rare, often spontaneous states, similar to a fugue state. It’s relaxing, but it can also be disturbing at the same time. On the show Prison Break, the character, Doctor Sara Tancredi, talks to one of the... many antagonists about his addiction to a benzodiazepine, and - being an addict to morphine, herself - says, ‘It feels like you’re walking underwater, doesn’t it?’ That’s probably not an exact quote. That’s perhaps a very simplistic way to describe this feeling, this ‘Limbo’ as I’ve been calling it.

I suppose that it’s somewhat peaceful. From this whole, long ‘stream of consciousness,’ as they call it in the literary and psychological worlds, it probably doesn’t seem like it, but I’ve actually been dwelling on the dark, negative things less while in this state than usual. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism... Maybe my body knows something is seriously wrong and it’s trying to remedy that problem to the best of its abilities. I really don’t know.

I suppose that ever since I got on meds, I’ve felt like a great deal of my mind was locked away in a vault that’s seemingly impossible to break into, which I don’t have a key or combination to. It feels like the only... logical, if not a perversely logical, way to open that vault is to get off my meds... and let my mind run rampant once again. Much of the part of my mind that is still accessible tells me that that’s crazy and utterly stupid, but some other part - a very seductive part - says that it’s the best thing to do. My mind is split, in the sense of being indecisive as well as in the sense of being broken.

If the cost of my sanity is to lose a very large part of myself, sanity doesn’t seem like a very good option. Even with my sanity, I’m obviously not doing too well. I think with a more... I wouldn’t say rational mind... but one that is fully intact with reality. I almost envy my old self, delusions, hallucinations, and all. The only real downer - from where I’m standing now - is the very, very serious sleep problems. If I could be off antipsychotics/mood stabilisers, but still manage to get at least the sleep I get now... it seems almost perfect to me. I found comfort in... what was beyond reality. Sure, I was plenty aware of reality, too, but I almost lived in two different worlds at the same time. They didn’t collide, but rather overlapped. The things that were perhaps most clinically considered ‘wrong’ with me, which the meds then at least mostly got rid of, where the things that made the most sense to me. I was happier then than I am now, in the sense that I had more and longer moments of continuous happiness, but I also had much, much darker places, too. It was crazier in the most literal sense, but it was me, as a whole.

I suppose I’ve been in a sort of Limbo for a pretty long time, now, but it’s most obvious right now. It... surfaced into the physical and conscious world, rather than more just the subconscious. ‘These are turbulent times,’ they might say in some cliché movie or show, but it’s fitting, I think.

Manic Panic

I had a panic attack the other day. Not a hypothetical one as in my last post, but a real, scary, physically and mentally tolling one...

Really, the attack occurred in the early morning, around 4:30-5:00. The day before that, around noontime, I had gone to a class held by a clinical psychologist in the behavioral health class on the Air Force base. It was me - a plain, young civilian - in a room full of soldiers. The class was about relaxations, and covered the differences between calm and stress - both physiologically and psychologically, though less on the psychology. Rapid heartbeat versus normal or slow heartbeat, fast, shallow breathing versus normal or slow breathing, muscle tension versus looseness, and so on and so forth...

Later, nearer to when the panic attack happened, I was told to get some yard work done - racking some leaves off of the concrete areas of the backyard and doing a little weed whacking, or at least getting rid of some of the tall grass and weeds. When I was asking for the sheers, since it was quite obvious that the weeds were too thick to cut with a weed whacker, I was told it was in the shed, but that the shed had a hornets' nest. It was also suggested that I should take out the nest, which I said should be fine while they were still dormant. However, despite all of this, I knew that those sheers weren't what I was talking about.

At this time, and maybe even earlier, I was going through a bit of a manic phase. It was obvious once I got up and moving around. I was searching for those sheers like a madman, turning over everything that they could've been hiding under. I went all over the house. My overhead light in my room hasn't worked in probably over a year, now, but I needed light to search my room - where I thought they most likely were. They're just scissor-like sheers with two or three inch blades put back into their original package.

I got my brother to replace the overhead light and, voilà, there they were, under a pile of... well, assorted things, after a manic search with a heart beating a million miles per hour and breathing like a hot dog. After I found those, I decided that the next thing I needed to do was deal with the hornets' nest. Something to note is that I'm deathly afraid of wasps, and basically any bug that bites or stings - but especially the first (and spiders.) So, can of deadly chemicals in hand, I slowly crept up to the nest hanging just over the shed doorway like mistletoe, I started spraying and spraying and spraying. I could see several wasps just drop down dead, but even then, I started spraying the grass they fell into, then switching back to the nest itself. The nest was soaked and dripping, the spray all over my hand, having had held the trigger on the can for probably thirty or more seconds without letting go.

They were undoubtedly dead at that point, but I was also hyperventilating. Mix that with my meds, which have sedating properties, I was barely in my right mind, woozy and stumbling. I climbed up the deck stairs up into the house. The world seemed like it was spinning and I felt like I was going to pass out. My hand - the one that got the spray all over it - was burning, so I read the back of the can which, at the time, was quite a feat. It said to immediately rinse the skin which it came into contact with for fifteen to twenty minutes with plenty of water.

I went into the bathroom and got to the sink. I then just let the water pour and pour and pour, as I laid my head on the faucet feeling the warmth of the hot water passing through it on my forehead and the steam rising to my face. I was still breathing rapidly and shallowly at this point, my heart beating faster than I could've kept up with counting, even with a clearer mind.

After maybe ten minutes of the rinsing, for some reason, I thought I should still go back out and start cutting the big, prickly weeds in the backyard. I don't really know why I did it, but I did. Being on the brink of fainting and trying to do yard work while simultaneously being paranoid about every little sensation just doesn't make a good fit. I was accidentally passing through small spider threads and would frantically - almost psychotically - start trying to pull the threads off as if they were laced with some sort of neurotoxin. After five or ten minutes of trying to cut weeds, I then frantically ran up the deck stairs in the backyard, neurotically looking for any wasp nests or spiders, until I finally got back inside.

I went downstairs and frantically searched for clothing and a towel. When I did, I went back upstairs as quickly as I could, stumbling around, until I got back into the bathroom. I jumped into the shower as quickly as I could and just sat there. I began to settle down, but it seemed so mentally exhausting that I somehow went from manic, to frantic, to exhausted and nearly depressed in just thirty to forty minutes. I was so mentally and physically exhausted that I nearly fell asleep in the shower.

When I was finally done, I was calmer but had absolutely no life in me. I went to bed and nearly slept the whole day away. I kept on thinking to myself, "If I get up, then I might be told to do yard work." There was no way I was going back outside; at least not for a few days. I didn't want another panic attack, and I didn't want to even spot a single wasp. When I finally woke up past 19:30, I just casually went to eat something and then went downstairs. I did also bring up the whole debacle with mom, trying to make sure that it was understood that I wasn't going outside. A bit of an agoraphobic episode. I still don't really want to leave the house - not even a single foot out the door.

I never thought it could be so... traumatic. The hornets weren't even awake, though they did do a number to mom's arm the day before. That probably didn't help, nor did the visual my brother gave me of the wasps seemingly spewing from a relatively unknown location. All of that added to the suspense and anticipatory anxiety. I've always had a fear of wasps, and I've always had some pretty panicky reactions whenever even a single wasp got within ten feet of me. I had never had a full-blown panic attack, though - not that I can remember. So this was certainly unexpected and extreme.

If a single hair on my body moves, I automatically think a wasp or spider is crawling on me. If I get even the smallest poke, I think I'm getting stung or bitten. If I see a tiny shadow pass over the ground or just over me, I think a wasp is flying over or around me. The paranoia kills me, and it's not actually unusual for me; it's just been unusually bad since the attack. Every year, during summer especially, I live in fear for at least moments of almost every day, submerged in the paranoia of little creepy crawly things. I love winter because most of such critters are dormant or dead, just how I like them. My anxieties and paranoia become less frequent and bothersome. But summer... the worse season of all for so many reasons, creepy crawlies at the top of the list.

So... that was a real panic attack - not some hypothetical example. That was real, genuine fear I felt, fear for my life. I felt like I was going to die, like I was going to drown without even an ounce of water. It seemed as though I was going to suffocate, or fill my blood and muscles with carbon dioxide. I've had that happen once before... and it was probably one of the most traumatising moments in my life. It happened in an entirely different situation, and altered my life quite dramatically, but the symptoms were all too similar.

I'll give myself a few days break from the outside world... more so than usual. Hopefully I'll get over it soon, but I'll just give myself some time to try and shake it off. But... one thing's for sure - I won't forget it for a long time.